Becoming Minako
by The Carnivorous Muffin
Summary: After having their first child, and a rather eventful and destructive nine months, Lee decides that for the safety of Konoha and the happiness of Minato she has no choice but to switch their genders. Minato doesn't appreciate it at all. side fic to "Minato Namikaze and the Destroyer of Worlds"


**Author's Note: The usual warnings. One, this is a side fic of "Minato Namikaze and the Destroyer of Worlds" and if you haven't read that you'll be confused. That also said this is extremely NOT CANON, as it takes place years in the future and none of what's written in here is guaranteed to happen at all. So, yes, read at your own risk.**

* * *

October 10th.

There were two worlds and fittingly two events of extreme importance taking place in both.

In one, Namikaze Minato, the yondaime hokage, had taken his wife to a secluded area surrounded by ANBU so that she could safely give birth to their firstborn son. This, perhaps unsurprisingly, did not go well.

There were, after all, several rather dangerous factors in play.

First, Uzumaki Kushina was Konoha's jinchuuriki, her seal one that was not designed for pregnancy and the rapid changes in chakra that come with it. Uzumaki Kushina was vulnerable.

Second, Uchiha Obito, despairing, mad, and forgotten along with the bodies of hundreds of others planned to take full advantage of a situation he told himself was a necessary evil. Uchiha Obito did not realize that necessary evils have a way of stacking up until there no longer is an option to turn back.

The other world's events were not quite so drastic although on a surface level they appeared quite similar. Namikaze Minato, the yondaime hokage, had taken his wife to a secluded area surrounded by ANBU so that she could give birth to their firstborn child. However, he wasn't quite concerned for her safety as he was for the safety of the village itself.

Eru Lee's pregnancy had had a surprisingly disastrous effect on the structure of the village and the yondaime had faced the growing fear that labor could be much worse. After long talks with Jiraiya as well as anyone else with personal experience with Lee and Lee in agonizing pain, he decided that it would be best to be far away from the village and any collateral damage when it happened.

In one, the Kyuubi was released from Kushina and set upon Konoha, in the other, a giant crater was formed as Eru Lee cursed god and the world as well as her own pregnancy.

One Namikaze Minato, after the death of his wife, facing the physical manifestation of hatred in the form of a fox, prepared to sacrifice himself by summoning death itself through fuinjutsu.

The other Namikaze Minato was simply relieved that reality itself was still more or less standing and that nothing important had been set on fire.

But this was not a story about sacrifice and valiance. This was the story of how one Namikaze Minato inadvertently turned the other into a woman.

* * *

For a moment the heat of the fires seemed to stop and the world along with it, everything slowed, as if these last moments were prolonging themselves so he might take them with him into oblivion.

He found himself turning, staring down at Naruto clutched in Kakashi's arms, so very new to the world, and found himself almost choking with the terrible grief that this was all he would ever see of him. That Naruto would grow up with only a face on a mountain and stories, memories, of him and Kushina.

That he would never truly know how very much they had loved him.

"Ugh…"

He whipped his head, bringing his hands up to form a seal, and found himself staring at an unfamiliar woman. Except, for a moment, in this slowed strange version of Konoha, he thought he recognized something in her, had passed her somewhere on the street in some other village, but couldn't quite place her in his thoughts.

But then, no, he wouldn't forget a face like hers. She was beautiful but not in any human or classical way, but instead in the way that some spirit wearing human skin might be beautiful. Her hair was too red, but not Kushina's red, instead something with more sunlight inside of it. Her eyes, too green, inhuman green, a kind of glowing in the dark green that simply didn't belong in eyes. Her skin, paler somehow than an Uchiha's, again so that it almost glowed like moonlight.

Except her expression didn't fit her face, it was something exhausted, pained, disgruntled, and very irritated.

She gave him a look, a look that clearly was supposed to mean something (although he had no idea what), and then turned to observe the burning Konoha around them.

"Well, everything's on fire… And, oh, Kurama, what an unpleasant surprise." The woman said as her eyes landed on the fox, looking if anything more exhausted and irritated then before, then she turned back to Minato, "I told you this was a bad idea."

Minato blinked, felt the bizarre urge to relax if only because he had no idea what was going on, but forced himself to stay on his guard because this woman had appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the destruction of Konoha.

"Who are you?"

She blinked, looking as if she hadn't quite heard him right, then she paled, "Oh, shit… My pregnancy broke the universe."

She sat down, looking completely unconcerned by anything happening, "Well, everything's on fire, there's a giant chakra fox on the loose, and Minato doesn't know who I am, I suppose this must mean it's Tuesday."

Minato, cautiously watching her, darted his eyes back to Kakashi and Naruto as well as the kyuubi itself, feeling everything tilt as he realized that the seal hadn't worked, somehow the seal had failed and he was still here and…

"I mean, it's not any worse than that time Madara tried to brainwash Obito into joining his plant zombie cult. There's no actual alien invasions this time, just giant chakra fox invasions which… Less of a problem." The woman continued, staring ahead at nothing, trying to reassure herself in a surprisingly calm tone given all the gibberish she was saying.

Minato looked around again, desperately trying to think, the woman at least didn't appear to be making any moves right now which gave him time to think of some other way to seal the fox. It would be less strong but then… Then perhaps he didn't have to use the shiki fujin, perhaps he could live, remain hokage (because the sandaime would have had to become kage again otherwise and deal with this clusterfuck of an aftermath), track down Madara…

It was then that he realized that everything was still unnaturally slow, the outside world somehow removed from where he and the woman were, as if it was on a different plane.

He body flickered over to the woman, pressed the edge of a kunai against her throat, watching as sweat trickled down her forehead from the heat, and with killing intent laced in his every word asked, "Who are you and what do you think you're playing at here?"

The woman looked at him again, and for a moment he almost faltered, that flickering sense of almost recognition growing. He didn't think anyone had ever looked at him quite like that, like they could see everything he was in just a glance, and yet they kept looking searching for the deepest parts of him…

She didn't flinch as he pressed the kunai deeper into her skin, didn't even blink, she just said slowly, "You're a different Minato… I don't know you yet."

She didn't explain this, didn't explain who the other Minato was if he was the different one, but instead offered a hesitant rather too cheerful smile.

"Before I answer your questions, can I just ask what was happening before I got here?" The woman asked, nodding her head towards Kakashi, Naruto, and the flames behind them.

"No." He pressed the kunai in more, blood beginning to bud at its tip, but again the woman didn't seem remotely concerned. As if mortality meant nothing to her.

"Oh, because it looks like you're offering this yellow whiskered infant as a human sacrifice to Kurama's insatiable appetite for virgin flesh… And that you somehow recruited Kakashi into all of this." The woman said with that unnaturally pleasant smile given her situation and her surroundings.

Minato blanched, "No! That's not what's happening! I…"

Except, in a way, it was. Jinchurriki, were sacrifices, containers, for the safety and prosperity for the village and Minato was condemning him to that fate.

Except now was not the time to be a father, it was to be a kage, "That doesn't answer any of my questions!"

The woman looked at him again, assessed him, took in the carefully hidden panic in his gaze as well as the despair, and then glanced over at the fox, "For your purposes I am the Shinigami."

"The Shinigami?" He asked, and though he could and should doubt something like that, there was again that moment of clear recognition and the thought that this title fit. And… And he had summoned death…

"The destroyer of worlds, at your service." The girl finished with a grin, ignoring the destruction of his own world, of his own village around them.

"Then… The seal, you're here because of the seal."

She looked at him blankly, silent for a moment too long, then "…Sure, why not?"

The kunai fell out of his numb fingers, clattered to the rooftop, and he grabbed her shoulders, "Please, you must take my soul, take my soul and seal the beast into the boy! My seal must be finished…"

"Take your soul?" The woman, the Shinigami, asked, drawing backwards and looking at him in alarm, "What would I want with your soul, Minato?! What would I even do with it?"

"That's what the seal does! The Shinigami devours my soul and binds the fox to my son! It's the only thing that will save Konoha now!"

Abruptly her look of irritation returned and there was an edge to the air, the feeling of overwhelming killer intent and chakra pressing in from all sides, "I knew this would happen. Everything will be fine, he says. We just have to stick you in the middle of nowhere, he says, so that nothing catches on fire. Funny, no one ever thought I'd teleport and or create an alternate dimension in the middle of an invasion! I mean, was that too outlandish for the list of possibilities?! Haven't I been complaining about the fragile state of the universe for years?!"

"What?"

She sighed, stood, looked down at him and said evenly (like he was an idiot who wasn't capable of understanding what she was saying), "Minato, I'm not eating your soul and making Kurama your son's oversized fox stomach ulcer. That's a really stupid plan. You can do better."

"But…"

"You can do better."

She then turned her attention to the kyuubi, her eyes narrowing, and for a moment stood completely and utterly still with her hair floating behind her in a curling red banner. Then, before Minato's eyes, as if he was witnessing a miracle, the fires disappeared and the buildings rebuilt themselves, time seemed to flow backwards and Minato found himself back in the clearing with Kushina (Kushina alive, alive and relieved, and smiling…) and the ANBU guards, Naruto only just brought into the world.

And he caught sight of the orange mask, visible just on the edge of the clearing, and felt his rage return and his fingers twitch for a kunai but then the woman was walking past him, hands shoved into her robes with a hunched shouldered casualness, towards the man in the mask.

The Shinigami didn't glance back, didn't even look at him just offered a short casual wave as she said, "Until then, me and brainwashed cultist Obito will go talk about life, the nature of reality, and why I'm not really all that certain we aren't already in a giant genjutsu. Oh, and, other-Minato, if you do need help… Then I guess you know how to call."

(And as he stared after her, as reality reasserted itself and the Shinigami and the orange masked man, teleported away from them he felt it sink together… Madara had been much too old, far too old to move as this man did, but Obito…

Oh god, Obito.)

* * *

October 11th, in a Konohagakure that wasn't in any way shape or form on fire.

"And then I told the other brainwashed Madara-cultist Obito that, you know, no one's really sure that reality exists anyways. Perhaps some other Obito has already created this universe and that the illusion you place over the previous Obito's illusion will only make things worse. Actually, now that I think about it, I think the Uchiha Obito illusion theory is a damn good one and explains quite a bit about the nature of our world… And then I went home."

Lee felt this was a perfectly apt summary, especially since she'd had to use way more energy than she would have liked, still had difficulty walking, and her newly born daughter was apparently just as sore, tired, and irritated as she was because little Naruto wouldn't stop crying in Minato's arms.

Judging by the look on Minato's face (the hokage look of super seriousness) he'd wanted some other explanation when he'd asked her what exactly had happened.

Still, considering that Lee had gone through an immense amount of pain in a short amount of time and teleported herself to a parallel universe and wasted huge amounts of chakra moving time backwards… No, she still felt awful.

She was also in a hospital, which meant Tsunade raging as usual about another Lee health related disaster (which it was definitely not Lee's fault that bizarre and alarming things tended to happen to her), the nidaime popping in and out to discuss parallel universes and alternate dimensions, Jiraiya being vaguely resigned yet also somehow disappointed at her latest journey through both space and time, Obito being just vaguely alarmed at the prospect of an alternate universe evil twin under the impression that he was batman, Kakashi giving her Jiraiya-porn as a get well gift, and her husband the hokage looking both patently unamused and horrifically concerned at the same time all while pretending he wasn't clutching his newly born daughter to his chest. Because serious meetings didn't involve babies.

(Clearly, Minato had had other things on his mind then foisting babysitting duties onto whichever ANBU agent was closest at the time. That, or, Minato had reached unfounded levels of paranoia since Lee's very brief disappearance from the universe.)

In other words, it was about as fun as every other time that Lee managed to get herself stuck in a hospital for observation.

"Well, try to be a little more detailed in the official report." Minato finally settled on, after having gone through a range of emotions, from fear, to concern, to irritation, resignation, and finally just a sort of exhausted relieved acceptance.

And at the word report Lee felt what little calm she'd had through this situation disappear.

"Why do I have to write a report? This isn't report worthy!" Lee said, because goddammit she was not adding a report onto all of this.

Naruto mewled with discomfort at the amount of noise, rustling slightly, and even as Minato's eyebrows lowered and the killing intent spiked he clutched her tighter to his chest and tried with great effort to reign in his own temper.

"Lee, you just travelled to a parallel dimension where another version of myself managed to summon you in order to turn our daughter…son… into a jinchuurki. If anything is worthy of a report it's that!" He paused then hastily added, "And if you just write, 'shit got Lee-ified', on there again I swear to god I will skin you!"

"But I always have to write a report!" Lee pointed out, really ready to tear her hair out, and so tired, and also craving ramen as she had been for the past nine months of awfulness.

"That's because bizarre and terrible things always seem to happen to you!"

Lee threw her hands into an air, shaking her head in dismay, and pointing out, "No, not really! Not like this! Things were never this weird before I went through puberty…"

"Things were just as weird before you went through puberty." Minato muttered under his breath, like she wasn't able to hear that.

Lee continued like he hadn't interrupted in the first place, because he hadn't, not with anything meaningful, "And ever since I got pregnant terrible, inexplicable, things started happening! I mean, I wasn't even three months in and I was being sacrificed to by the Jashinists as a god of fertility! Since when am I a god of fertility, Minato?! Since when?!"

"Lee, they've been convinced that you're the goddess of righteous war since you were thirteen! I hardly see how this is any different." Minato said, his one free hand gesturing while the other continued to hold onto the crying Naruto.

"And then I ended up in another dimension…"

Somewhere where he hadn't recognized her at all, where she'd only been this alien being he could bargain with for the life of his son and his wife, and Konohagakure had lain burning in the background.

Minato grabbed her hand with his free one, squeezed it reassuringly with that soft smile he sometimes wore, "Lee, it's fine, you got through it. You always do."

He glanced down at Naruto, then carefully passed her to Lee, "Now, would you like to hold your daughter?"

He was right, as Minato usually was in his own Minato way, and maybe she was holding onto grievances too tightly. After all, it was over now, done with, and now she could relax without anything spontaneously combusting around her. Now she didn't have to worry about things like being summoned to parallel world right after giving birth. Which, really, was kind of nice.

Carefully, Lee took the girl from Minato, staring down into her tiny pink face and wondering when either of their features would show up. As of yet this Naruto didn't look all that different from the other Naruto she'd seen in that other world, the one with whisker marks on his face.

And it was about then, holding this tiny bundle of potential in her arms, that Lee realized something.

Minato and she had grown up orphans, but for all that they had similar backgrounds they had very different perspectives on certain things.

Lee, having lived with the Dursleys, really had no ingrained desire for family. Family to Lee meant an onslaught of unexplained D-ranks as well as nothing but contempt and insults. And for all that Death was benevolent, he was also very removed from her life and oftentimes felt more like a distant uncle than he had a father. Lee had never needed, never really wanted, family.

After all, she'd had Minato, which was more than she'd ever expected.

Minato, on the other hand, felt the lack of his family, his history, very keenly. He hid it well most of the time, but when they were younger, before they were in the academy, he'd often despaired that he would forget everything about them. Minato needed family, needed a clan, and he had that with Lee and now with Naruto…

But Minato had already said he wanted a large family, blood family, not just through Jiraiya, his students, and Sakumo but children. Minato wanted, almost more than he'd wanted anything else, children. And Minato didn't want just one child, he wanted six, and at the time he'd brought it up Lee hadn't really thought about what that meant.

Lee had been more focused on finishing her ramen and wondering why Minato was staring at her and flushing than she had on the idea of children.

Lee liked kids well enough, and while she didn't necessarily need barrels of blood relatives she wasn't opposed to having a ridiculously large family, but that was back before she'd really thought through exactly what having six or seven kids meant.

Point being, it wasn't until Lee was in the hospital, holding Naruto for the first time in her arms, after turning back time in another dimension, and staring at a ridiculously sappy Minato that Lee realized that she was expected to go through this at least four more times.

And she was about to open her mouth, and let out that desperate truth that she just couldn't go through this again, wouldn't go through this again when she had another thought.

This could destroy Minato.

Well, not destroy him, because Minato was made of stronger stuff than that but… But he'd never really understand. He'd try to, he'd swallow whatever arguments he had and respect her decision, but a desperate ache would probably build up inside of him and consume him when she wasn't looking.

It would cause him an unbearable amount of unhappiness.

"Lee, are you alright?" Minato asked, concern returning to his features as he searched her face.

But Lee couldn't go through that again, she wouldn't go through that again, why was she the one who had to go through that again?

She'd never asked to be the child bearing half of the equation! Lee had never even thought about that until Minato had started dating her, and really only then when he told her that giving her flowers meant that he was dating her and it was a sign of affection. It was patently unfair that Lee was the one forced to be put out of work, go partially insane, and then be transported to other dimensions with invading foxes while Minato got to frolic around wearing his stupid kage hat!

In fact, putting it like that, it was a lot less dangerous if Minato was the one bearing children. He was powerful, true, but compared to Lee he was a tiny little ant squished beneath her boot. He also was far more controlled about his chakra and generally less volatile. Chances were if Minato was pregnant instead the amount of damage done to the village would be astronomically less than it had been in the past nine months. This would mean he'd have an astronomically less amount of paperwork, which, given Minato's feelings on paperwork he'd be grateful that it was him, instead of Lee, who was pregnant.

"Lee?" Minato asked, for a second time, with a look borrowed from Jiraiya's old sensei days. That look of dawning horror as Jiraiya realized that something entirely beyond his control, and ability to explain, was about to occur and he had no means of stopping it.

With determination Lee handed Naruto back to Minato and announced, "Minato, I've decided, for the safety of the village that next time you get to be pregnant."

For a moment Minato just looked a little out of sorts and slightly confused, then he seemed to process what she had said and his eyes went wide and he cried out, "Lee, don't even think about…"

But Lee didn't stop to think about anything, instead she gathered her rather large amount of chakra, for what seemed to be a rather simple task; changing her own form as well as Namikaze Minato's.

* * *

"Sakumo, you have to talk to her, you're the only one she really respects."

Hatake Sakumo had more or less ended up as an unofficial uncle to the yondaime hokage Namikaze Minato. Of course, it'd been this way long before Minato had become hokage, back when he'd only been Eru Lee's old childhood friend. When Minato had ended up Kakashi's sensei it'd only cemented bonds that had already been there.

He'd always liked Minato and, for the most part, he'd always admired how well Minato seemed to work with Lee. He alone, out of everyone in the village, seemed to be able to take Eru Lee in stride without having a mental breakdown.

And along the way Minato had grown to like him, see him as a source of advice on Lee, Kakashi, ANBU, kenjutsu, and sometimes even banal topics that Sakumo really wasn't an expert in.

However, as much as Sakumo liked Minato, and as much as he liked his former apprentice, even he had to admit that he was very much out of his depth this time.

It was three in the morning, the village dead asleep except for ANBU and those poor overworked souls in T&I, and Hatake Sakumo was having tea with his kage… Who, in the last five hours, had somehow gotten himself transformed into a woman.

"Well, I suppose that is true." Sakumo said, rather blandly, because while Lee did respect him that didn't mean she always listened to his advice. In fact, now that he thought about it, she rarely listened exactly to his advice.

Except, it was hard to recall any of that, because he was starting to note that Namikaze Minato really did make an unusually attractive woman. He'd always been pretty as a man, with finely shaped features and his pale blue eyes, but as a woman… There was suddenly feminine grace in the curve of his neck, the thinness of his wrists, his eyelashes cast shadows on his blue eyes, and everything about him screamed feminine beauty.

Such that, if Sakumo had been a younger man, and had seen Minato in a bar, he would probably have given a very good try to 'tap that' as Jiraiya would say.

"None the less, Minato, I'm not sure she'll listen to me." Sakumo finally finished weakly, trying to think of anything besides Minato as a woman, and oh god what would Jiraiya think? What if Jiraiya didn't recognize him? Because while Sakumo might think about tapping Minato's ass Jiraiya would go for it without shame.

Minato may not exactly have the standard breast size that Jiraiya's women usually did but with the kind of beauty that inspired poetry even Jiraiya could overlook the lack of cleavage.

"Please, Sakumo, I am on the verge of begging!" Minato said, his voice now a notable higher pitch, hands white around the tea and beautiful face distorted in anger, "I cannot show up to the tower like this tomorrow!"

He might very well have to show up to work like that tomorrow. And, fortunately or unfortunately, most of the jonin who worked there would understand. In fact, most of the village would understand. There was a saying, in ANBU, about Lee's law. The rule was that no matter the situation, no matter how banal, if Lee was in any way involved (directly or indirectly) it would go off the rails in an unprecedented manner that no one had ever thought possible.

"Well, did Lee say why she… made you a woman?" Sakumo asked, because while his apprentice was a bit eccentric, she usually had a fairly logical reason behind her actions.

Minato, for a moment, looked irritated beyond all reasonable bounds, and finally said, "She said that since I want more children, and I also don't want the village on fire, the only solution is if she becomes the man and I get pregnant instead."

He couldn't laugh, he wouldn't laugh, he would try very, very, hard not to laugh. Taking a sip of tea and praying not to choke he composed himself and managed a small and sympathetic, "Oh, I see."

"You see?!" Minato retorted, drawing back and then motioning to himself, "She turned me into a… I don't even know how to use the bathroom now!"

"Well, have you told her how you feel about it?" Sakumo asked, because usually Lee respected (to an almost frightening degree) Minato's feelings on any given situation.

"Of course I did!" Minato shouted, then paused, taking a second to calm himself and try to look at the situation reasonably. And that was a very bad sign for Minato, because that meant that Lee had decided Minato simply didn't understand the situation, and was too emotionally invested to ever understand it.

"Perhaps, if you convince her that being a man isn't ideal, then she'll turn you both back." Sakumo suggested.

"Having only been a man I really don't have an argument for the other gender." Minato spat out with irritation, finally sighing and said, "Can you please just… Say something to her, she sometimes listens to you."

"Minato, she mostly listens to you." Sakumo pointed out, and, with a look that Sakumo had seen from men marching to their death, Minato just stared back.

Sakumo didn't think Minato would appreciate the consolation that he made a very beautiful woman.

"How are you, aside from your current predicament?" Sakumo asked and Minato simply sighed.

"Exhausted." He finally said, "I left Naruto with Lee, once we finally got her out of the hospital that is, told her that if she was going to turn me into a woman she had no right to complain about me leaving her to get hopelessly drunk in a bar."

Sakumo's eyebrows raised, "You didn't tell her where you were going?"

"No, I… I was upset." Minato finally said and added, "And perhaps a little afraid."

"It didn't go well then?" Sakumo, having long since retired from ANBU, no longer was quite in the know with this sort of thing.

Minato snorted, "About as well as could be expected. Fires, giant craters, teleportation to parallel dimensions…"

It was sad that Sakumo couldn't refute that this wasn't the expected outcome with anything involving Lee. She had this way of turning very normal circumstances into inconceivable disasters.

"That's the part I can't tell her, that perhaps, she might just have a point in all of this." Minato mused, sipping at his tea with a pensive and somber expression, "If I was acting as a kage, and not as a man or her husband, then Lee has a fair point. However…"

"No one is going to blame you for being upset."

Minato didn't say anything, simply looked at Sakumo, and after too long of a pause said, "Naruto is fine though, if that was what you wanted to know, and Lee as well… For the most part."

The hokage stood then, passing his empty cup to Sakumo, "Thank you, for the tea and… If you wouldn't mind doing me one more favor, don't tell Kakashi until it's unavoidable. If there is a benevolent god in the universe then this will be reversed before that point."

Unfortunately for Minato, Kakashi lived for this sort of thing, and time was swiftly running out, "Well, I'll do my best, yondaime-sama."

Minato grimaced, probably envisioning the fallout with Kakashi, and offered a short wave before quietly exiting out of the compound from whence he came.

Still, really, Kakashi wasn't the one Minato should be worried about. If Sakumo was Minato he'd be far more concerned about Jiraiya.

* * *

Minato's attempt to regain his masculinity: one.

"Lee, listen, being a man is much harder than you think it is. And much less fun."

Lee glanced over at him from the kitchen table where she… he… was performing an admirable balancing act of holding Naruto while also inhaling ramen at the same time. A sight that he probably wouldn't have been disturbed by any other morning if… Well…

In some ways she barely looked different. True, her face had changed slightly, there was now a sharper edge to her cheekbones than there'd been before and perhaps a more defined chin. But she had the same eye shape, the same nose, and in some sense the same body shape. Lee had always been lean, her curves mostly in the thinness of her waist rather than in breasts or her hips, and as a man she was still lean. Her shoulders wiry and thin, and her chest only slightly tapered, muscular but very lean and compact.

Looking desperately at himself naked in a mirror (and trying not think of his own reflection as something he would have been attracted to only a night before) he'd found that his own transformation also wasn't all that dramatic… Well, once you got over the missing body parts and the additions to his chest. He looked unmistakably like a woman but other than his thinner neck, slightly rounder face, curvier waist, and small breasts, he still looked more or less like himself.

If someone had told him he was going to be transformed into a woman he would have pictured one of sensei's bombshells but that really wasn't the case. It was still him just… a woman version, like looking at a hypothetical sister.

But still, in the morning, realizing that a night's sleep hadn't made the problem go away Minato had gotten very desperate.

"Really?" Lee asked between bites of ramen, rocking Naruto slightly as she fussed.

"Really," Minato repeated as he sat down, "There's a lot to it that isn't going to be intuitive. It might be easier, for both of us, if you changed your mind before anything can happen."

"Like what?" Lee asked, "What's not intuitive?"

Well, lots of things, but they weren't coming to mind. For a moment he floundered silently and then grasped onto the first idea he had, "You're friends with Shikaku, right?"

"Lazy Nara and I go way back," Lee acknowledged with raised eyebrows, "You know that though."

"Well, you being friends with Shikaku as a woman is very different from me being friends with Shikaku as a man. For example, when we get together and drink, sometimes we make comments on how attractive we find certain women versus others or things about our wives that we simply don't understand. There's a lot of male bonding… Bonding that you've never really had to deal with before."

"I can talk about how attractive I find women." Lee pointed out, which Minato cringed at, because suddenly he didn't like the idea of Lee rating Uzumaki Kushina on a scale of one to ten.

"Yes, but Lee, you're not really attracted to women." Minato said, trying not to flush or wonder if she really wasn't, Lee's hormonal development had been a bit… odd. Until Minato had started dating her he wasn't sure if Lee could find anyone attractive.

"I've never tried to be before," Lee admitted before brightly adding, "I'm sure it's not that hard though. It's about symmetry, right?"

"No, Lee, it's not about symmetry!" Minato had a drawing sense of horror that he'd just recommended that his wife attempt to make eye candy of the kunoichi population.

(And worse, as he flushed and panicked, he also felt more than a little jealous. He didn't like the idea of her talking to Kushina or Mikoto and either of them, or anyone for that matter, taking interest in her… him…)

"Sure it is, that's why the Uchiha are considered so attractive." Lee said, then added, "And according to Jiraiya it's about very large breasts."

"Well, Lee, what about me? I'm a woman now, you've turned me into a woman! You can't tell me you still find me attractive!" And he honestly hadn't thought about that, but what if it was true, what if she left him because he wasn't what she wanted anymore? Or, no, she'd never really leave but…

"Oh, don't worry, I've always found you very aesthetically pleasing." Lee said, before musing, "Although, I've never really considered your attractiveness in terms of gender before…"

Finally Lee seemed to reach some internal decision, and said, "You're right, I haven't been taking this man thing very seriously. If I want to do this right, if we want to do this right, then we should go to the experts."

"The experts?" Minato had a very bad feeling on who the experts would be.

"Minato, you should go see Uzumaki, I need to go pal around with sensei for a while."

* * *

You leave Konoha for a few months and the whole place changes on you.

Jiraiya couldn't help but wonder if spying on Konoha was a bit like spying on Kiri, only ten times less bloody and five times weirder. In Kiri allegiances changed by the second, everyone had a pair of eyes in the back of her heads, and if you blinked you'd have missed one massacre or another. Jiraiya, as a wandering spymaster, had a cold dark spot in his heart for Kiri and gathering information from it but, then, he supposed it was his lot in life since he didn't have to keep tabs on Konoha.

And what a job that must be.

As it was, since Jiraiya had taken up wandering around the elemental nations under the more or less legitimate guise of an author, he'd had to set up a more or less unofficial spy network in order to make sure he was up to date on exactly what had happened since he'd last stopped in.

Unfortunately, Jiraiya's more or less unofficial spy network usually consisted of a gossiping Hatake Kakashi. Who, as Minato's other student Uchiha Obito had put it, had been hopelessly corrupted by Lee since the age of three and was the smartest dumbass that Konoha had ever seen.

Of course, Kakashi was actually worse than Lee. Lee was hopelessly oblivious to the amount of suffering she caused others on a daily basis. Kakashi, Jiraiya always had the feeling that Kakashi knew exactly what he was doing.

Having paid Kakashi in buffalo wings, Jiraiya sat across from him in a sealed booth, waiting for Kakashi to lick the grease from his fingers and start talking. Which, of course, meant that Kakashi was going to take his sweet time with his chicken wings if only to make Jiraiya twitch.

"Alright, brat, you have your wings." Jiraiya prompted, only to be met with a single raised eyebrow.

"Patience, Jiraiya-sama, good things come to those who wait." Kakashi said, inspecting one of the bones with a musing expression, then storing it in a scroll for his ninken to chew on later, seeming in no hurry whatsoever.

"I've been waiting, Kakashi-kun." He'd been waiting alone in this booth for three hours only to be given the lame excuse of, 'I was kidnapped by aliens and had the priceless opportunity to get Presley Elvis' autograph'.

"Well, then, there's no harm in waiting a little longer. Is there, Jiraiya-sama?" Kakashi asked, giving that cheeky overjoyed grin that he must have picked up from Lee (and goddamn Jiraiya had known that Sakumo taking Lee as an apprentice was a terrible idea but he'd never thought of the consequences being Kakashi, Lee's second coming).

"Considering I have a meeting with your sensei, the hokage, in less than an hour there is harm in waiting longer."

"You know, you could always go to sensei yourself, or nee-san." Kakashi pointed out, oh so helpfully, "Or perhaps even Obito and Rin. You don't have to come crawling to me every time you manage to find your way back to the village."

Jiraiya usually did make a point of talking to Obito or else Rin, along with Minato, Lee, Haru, and pretty much anyone else. However, Kakashi had that unique perspective of being fairly close to both Lee and Minato, while also being able to somewhat understand Lee's motivations and thought processes.

If Jiraiya wanted a behind the scenes look at Konoha's latest disaster then Kakashi was usually the one to go to.

"I could, but I'm here, you have your wings, so you might as well start talking."

Kakashi deposited the last of the bones inside of his scroll, tucked it away into his flak jacket, and then gave Jiraiya his full attention. "Well, where to start, where to start..."

Kakashi stared blankly at the table for a few moments, then conceded, "Well, it's nothing so dramatic as last time."

Last time being the loss of Kakashi's own eye, replaced by a dying Obito's sharingan, as well as Lee's rescue of Obito from a plant zombie cult founded by none other than Madara, and then Lee taking Obito on as her apprentice (that poor bastard).

Of course, at the time, Jiraiya hadn't been able to take it nearly that lightly. Neither, for that matter, had anyone else including Hatake Kakashi.

A year later though and Jiraiya was able to view the past events a little more neutrally, now that the war had finally come to a close without any sign of starting again (or at least, not for Konoha, not with Minato as kage and Lee as his wife).

"Small favors," Jiraiya said, causing Kakashi to crack a rather crooked smile as he lounged in his seat.

"Naruto was born, I'm sure you've heard." Kakashi said and Jiraiya nodded, because that much he had been told in encrypted letters from his students.

"Of course, why they wanted to name their daughter Naruto is beyond me." Jiraiya said, although he was more than a little touched and flattered that they'd think of him and his first book for the name. But really, how hard would it be just to call her Naruko instead?

"Nee-san felt it fit, more or less, since her own name is rather masculine." Kakashi explained with a shrug, which, that did sound like Lee logic if there ever was any.

"Let's see, Obito was sent on another journey of self-discovery for his apprenticeship." Kakashi mused, like that was a completely normal thing for anyone to demand of their student. Which, well, given that it was Lee maybe it was.

"Where was he sent to this time?" If he was lucky he'd be sent to England again to straighten out Lee's political affairs but chances were that Uchiha Obito just wasn't that lucky. In fact, Obito might have even worse luck than Tsunade if Jiraiya thought about it.

Tsuande, after all, had never managed to get herself kidnapped and experimented on by Madara.

"Hoth, the ice dimension… Obito says that it is as unpleasant as it sounds." Kakashi said before continuing, "Rin is still bothering Tsunade to take her on as an apprentice, rather unsuccessfully. Father is slowly but surely thinking of retiring from field work altogether… That's about it."

"Really?" Jiraiya asked, somewhat surprised, "That's pretty damn tame, Kakashi."

"This isn't television, Jiraiya-sama, it doesn't always have to be exciting." Kakashi chided, in a voice far too authoritative and wise for a fourteen-year-old to use against a man his age.

"That's true enough." Jiraiya said, he actually preferred it when things weren't exciting, made his own job easier.

"Well, that's good to hear, Kakashi." Jiraiya hadn't really been expecting anything, since Minato hadn't sent any urgent scrolls his way, but it was still good to know that there wasn't anything too surprising like the creation of a clone village or a Jashinist temple built inside the village.

Jiraiya put down money for the bill, took one last swig of sake, and stood ready to make his way to the hokage tower where Minato was waiting. Or at least, he was, until Kakashi's voice so casually interrupted his movements.

"Oh, I almost forgot," Kakashi said, "Minato-sensei turned into a woman."

"What?!"

Jiraiya, without thinking, sat straight back down and shouted for another bottle of sake, which could not come soon enough. Goddammit, he knew something like this would happen and Kakashi, that little ass, would enjoy every second of it.

"Nee-san also happens to be a man, right now, but it's not all that important."

"Not all that important?!" Jiraiya parroted, rather loudly, but he wasn't quite sure he cared about that right now.

"Well, it doesn't change anything." Kakashi stated before calmly elaborating, "Sensei is still hokage, he still has the same amount of chakra, he just happens to have breasts. As for nee-san, she's always been more or less androgynous. Aside from not bleeding every month I'm not sure she's noticed a difference."

Thankfully, at this point, the new bottle of sake arrived along with a sympathetic glance from the rather attractive waitress. Which, that was a sign, because Jiraiya had hit on that girl plenty of times and whatever sympathy she'd ever had for him should have been written off years ago.

"You're telling me that Lee turned Minato into a woman and herself into a guy?!"

"You'll see for yourself in…" Kakashi glanced at a clock mounted on the wall, "Ten minutes."

"Ten minutes?! You only gave me ten minutes to process this?!" That was not nearly enough time for Jiraiya to try to come to grips and picture… Well, Minako-chan and Lee-kun.

"What's to process? Sensei is now a beautiful woman and nee-san is a strangely effeminate looking man. I hardly see what there is to process." Kakashi considered Jiraiya, eyebrow raised dubiously, and asked in all seriousness, "Jiraiya-sama, are you beginning to be effected by your age?"

Beautiful woman?! Jiraiya was still stuck on the, 'Minato is a woman' part of the equation. Although, now that he thought about it, there were some men who'd make utterly hideous looking women. Jiraiya as a woman would be a pitiful sight to see. However, that said, he'd always felt that Orochimaru could easily pass as a geisha if he really wanted to.

And now that he was thinking about it, thinking back to how Minato looked when he last saw him, and changing the shape of the body only slightly then…

But he'd spent years dragging Minato around the countryside, all while Jiraiya brought home hookers to every inn they stayed at, and you just didn't do that kind of thing with a woman!

And that wasn't even getting to imagining Lee as a man.

"Kakashi, you piece of shit, you know exactly why I'm acting this way!" Jiraiya said, slamming his hand on the table and causing his glass to wobble dangerously.

"Hm, do I?"

He did, Jiraiya knew he did and Kakashi knew that Jiraiya knew he did, but glancing at the clock Jiraiya didn't have the time to kick the shit out of Minato's little shit of a student (which Kakashi had no doubt planned, which was why he'd shown up three hours late, because Kakashi was a clever little bastard like that).

"When I find you after this meeting, Kakashi, you will wish that you had never been born!" Jiraiya threatened, then slammed down another few coins for the extra drink, and began storming out of the restaurant.

But of course, Kakashi had to call after him, "Looking forward to it, Pervy Sage."

That was it, Kakashi was never getting another copy of Icha Icha ever again, even if Jiraiya had to burn every single one of his masterpieces.

* * *

Minato's attempt to regain his masculinity: two.

After a few weeks of logical arguments, along with emotional arguments, along with pleading, with absolutely no results to show for it Minato had decided that it was time to up the ante. Namely, Minato had decided that if he couldn't beat Lee he could join her.

Jiraiya had done his best to keep his poker face during their meeting. Although, it wasn't a very good job, since Minato had caught Jiraiya looking rather dazed and eyeing Minato's new cleavage more than once.

Still, while Minato could slap him across the face and ask him if he'd ever tried to oogle Lee's breasts when she wasn't looking, Minato needed Jiraiya rather desperately. He could kick his sensei's ass when he regained his original gender.

"Jiraiya-sensei, I'm sure you've noticed that I'm a woman now."

Jiraiya's eyebrows rose and dully said, "Yeah, Minato-kun, I had noticed that."

"And if you've checked in with Kakashi-kun you've probably heard that Lee is now a man."

Jiraiya nodded slightly, "Yup, heard that too."

Minato paused, his chakra adding pressure to the air around them, and the hat casting shadows over his eyes, "I would infinitely prefer it if we returned to the way things used to be."

"Good luck with that, Minato." Jiraiya said, with a small barking laugh to show how little he thought that was going to work out for him.

"You're going to help, sensei." Mianto said and Jiraiya's look of amusement was completely gone.

"What?"

"Now that you're back in Konoha Lee intends to seek you out to learn how to be a man. Take her to a bathhouse, preferably when Kushina, Mikoto, and even Tsunade are inside."

Jiraiya paled, looked like a man staring into the face of death itself, and said, "Minato, you can't… You know what will happen if…"

Minato offered Jiraiya a cruel and jagged smile, leaned forward over his desk, and stared his sensei straight in the eyes, "I am at war, Jiraiya, for my own identity. This is not a time for half measures. Take her to a bathhouse, sensei."

"Right, okay squirt, I'll take her to the bathhouse." Jiraiya said, standing slowly, before turning back to Minato, "You know, Minato, this might very well kill me."

Minato leaned back, transformed his smile into something far more cheerful, "I'm sure you'll be fine."

"Right, yeah, fine… Can I at least see my goddaughter before you send me to my death?"

* * *

"Alright Lee, the most important part of being a man and appreciating women is doing your research."

Jiraiya watched as Lee avidly scribbled in the notebook she… he… had brought with him. Lee wasn't a bad looking man, a little on the lithe side and perhaps a bit feminine looking, but definitely not anywhere approaching unattractive.

Which, really, Jiraiya would have preferred it if Lee had ended up unattractive. Or at least if Minato had. Kakashi really hadn't been throwing the word 'beautiful' out for show, Minato really had been quite a stunner even in the hat, and that was just something no sensei should ever think about his previously male student.

"Right, research… What does research have to do with bathhouses, oh wise sensei?" Lee asked, and her… his… voice was lower than it had been. Not too low, not as low as Jiraiya's, but more of a tenor sound.

Minato had never been this appreciative of Jiraiya's expertise when Jiraiya had taken him on that training journey. It was almost refreshing, certainly flattering, or would have been if it wasn't coming from Eru Lee.

"Bathhouses, my strangely masculine student, are the most important part of research! Here we see the astounding beauties in their natural form. Showing all the world what treasures they have to offer when they think no one is looking! Here, here Lee, is everything!" Jiraiya pushed Lee closer to the wall separating them from the laughing, chatting, extremely naked women of Konoha.

"You know, having been in the bathhouse myself, I don't remember it being like that." Lee commented, which, really Jiraiya did not need the reminder that a little while ago he could have been spying on Eru Lee in there.

"Yeah, well, welcome to the other side." Jiraiya commented before adding, "Now, Lee, this is where you'll come in. We need a way to look in without them noticing us, can you do that?"

Lee nodded, grabbed his arm, and teleported them in without anyone seeming to notice. And good god, what a crop! All of Konoha's young beauties were milling about from Uzumaki Kushina, Uchiha Mikoto, all the way to Senju Tsunade, all lazing about under Jiraiya's eye with the best view he'd ever seen of any of them.

Suddenly Jiraiya was liking this plan a lot more than he had in Minato's office.

"So, what now?" Lee asked, staring at him and then back at the pool, like she was waiting for something to happen.

"Now, Lee, now I write and let the inspiration come." He crouched down, took out his notebook, and as his eyes traced each of the women he let the fantasies of well-endowed beauties and space pirates take hold.

He was about ten pages of lurid sex in when Lee interrupted, "Sensei, I don't think I understand, are we just supposed to sit here and giggle?"

"Giggle?" Jiraiya asked, his head whipping to turn towards her, "I am not giggling! I am creating art!"

"You've been giggling and drooling for at least fifteen minutes." Lee pointed out before adding, "I just fail to see what this has to do with masculinity."

Oh god, she… he… was hopeless.

Jiraiya motioned to his bathing beauties, "Lee, look at them, tell me what you see."

"…Is this one of those rhetorical questions?" Lee asked, and when Jiraiya didn't answer, she said, "…The will of fire?"

Hopeless. Even Minato, flushing desperate virgin Minato, so in love with Lee that he couldn't even think of looking at anyone else, had been more promising than this.

"No, look Lee, look at their curves, the angle of their necks, look at their heaving, flushed, round bosoms…" Unwittingly Jiraiya found himself taking out he notebook again, itching to write down these thoughts, to get back into the groove of Icha Icha.

"Alright, I'm looking." Lee said blankly, staring at each of them.

"No, Lee, it's not just about seeing you have to… Think about them pressed against your body! Think about all those delicious curves pressed against you, your lips on their neck, and hands trailing downwards…" Goddammit, he needed to write this down, not tell it to an entirely uncomprehending Eru Lee!

"…Hands…" Lee said as she scribbled in her own notebook, then turned it to stare at it from an angle as if that might give her the answers she needed, and with reluctant frustration, "I… I don't think I get it."

"Lee, you've had sex, I know you've had sex! What the hell were you thinking about then?"

Lee blinked, looked somewhat taken aback, and slowly said, "…I don't really know. It's not about flesh, it's… It's about him, and me, and something deeper than skin or curves or even hands…"

That was actually quite beautiful, and a little romantic, but goddammit if Lee was telling him that she'd… he'd… never felt lust!

"So you're telling me that you never looked at Minato and thought, 'damn, look at his abs' or 'he's got a really perky ass'?" Not that Jiraiya would have wanted to know what Lee thought about how Minato looked but he really needed to press this point home.

"…Well, I suppose Minato's always nice to look at." Lee mused before pausing, and adding, "And his ass is… firm, I suppose."

"You suppose?!" Jiraiya really wished he wasn't having this conversation, this shit was for Sakumo who'd volunteered himself to deal with Lee during puberty.

"Well, yes, it never really crossed my mind at the time." Lee said with a shrug, wide eyed, looking a little out of sorts and concerned by her lack of understanding.

And Jiraiya suddenly wondered just how it was that Lee and Minato seemed to work so well when Lee didn't seem to understand what even drove sex. He placed his head into his hands, not really wanting to think about his students' love life, and wondering how he'd wound up in this situation.

"Oh, hey, look, it's Minato!"

And Jiraiya's situation suddenly became ten times worse. Because there, standing a little awkwardly in a towel, face flushed, was the beautiful Namikaze Minato. And god, her legs, they'd never seemed that long or smooth when she was a man and Jiraiya was certain she was the same height, but those legs…

And Minato's plan suddenly clicked in Jiraiya's head.

"Oh, shit."

Minato smiled, a slow fox's smile, and waved to Kushina who was now in hysterics at the sight of him… her… and waved Minato into the pool.

And Jiraiya, slowly, too slowly, turned to look at Lee who had already caused her own notebook to vanish and was walking over towards Minato and his new, feminine, friends with a giant unaware grin on her face.

"Wait, Lee, don't!" Jiraiya cried out, but it was too late, Lee's genjutsu broke and every woman in the place turned to look at him and Eru Lee.

Including Tsunade.

Without a word Tsunade stood, clutched a towel to herself, eyed Jiraiya, and before Jiraiya could scramble over the wall he felt a fist in the back of his spine sending him straight through it.

* * *

Minato's attempt to regain his masculinity: three.

Lee stared blankly at the bleeding mass that had formerly been their sensei, looking faintly concerned by the sight but not quite sure if she should do anything about it. Minato himself was slightly concerned, but after being Jiraiya's apprentice and seeing the man in action, he had little remorse for throwing him under the metaphorical bus.

Just so long as Lee got the point. Being a man lead to inexplicable suffering and pain. Which, well, if Lee didn't figure out that this was only Jiraiya's problem so much the better.

Finally, Lee turned to everyone in the pool and asked, "So, how are you all doing?"

"Lee, what the hell do you think you're doing here?" Tsunade asked, as she walked past Lee and back into the water.

Minato blinked, confused, then blinked again because the scene hadn't changed. He didn't necessarily want to see Lee hurt (might even intervene unintentionally if she was) but this was the part where Tsunade was at least supposed to throw Lee out. Lee was now a man just as much as Minato was a woman, if Minato was welcome here then Lee couldn't be. But no one was making any move towards Lee, not Tsunade, Mikoto, or even Kushina.

"Jiraiya said it was vital to being a man to learn how to research bathhouses… I think, it got a little confusing towards the end." Lee said with a look of puzzlement on her face, then turned her attention back to Minato with a cheerful grin, "I had no idea you'd be here, though, Minato."

"Well, I thought, since I appear to be stuck as a woman I might as well give the baths a try." Minato said weakly, even as he grimaced, because the truth was he still wasn't comfortable. When Jiraiya hadn't gotten thrown out after about twenty minutes (and that was twenty minutes of Jiraiya convincing Lee to oogle other women), Minato had had to take matters into his own hands, but that didn't mean he felt like…

Well, he just didn't belong here, but everyone was acting like he did and that he wasn't a giant pervert for even being in the same water as them.

"First off, Jiraiya is a sick moron, never listen to a word he says." Tsunade lectured before motioning to Minato, "Look at this guy, when he was a man did you ever see him peeking in on bathhouses?"

"…No, I don't think so." Lee said, slowly, as if trying to remember if she ever had seen Minato lurking outside of women's restrooms giggling to himself like sensei.

"Shouldn't… Shouldn't Lee not be here?" Minato asked, before adding, "I mean, he is a man now."

Kushina scoffed, waving her hand, "Yeah, but it's Lee, I don't think Lee even really understands sex."

"We have a daughter, Kushina." Minato growled out which just caused Kushina to laugh harder.

"I know, how did that even happen?!" Kushina crowed in between bouts of hysterics, and finally after calming down she grinned at Lee, "Alright, Lee, why don't you come on in? I've been curious about what sort of goods you've been packing forever!"

Lee looked down at herself…himself… then back at the water. Then, with a shrug, began stripping in front of everyone. Minato was dying, his face was on fire and he was dying, his wife/husband was strip teasing Uzumaki Kushina without even seeming to realize it.

And as Lee's shirt was thrown to the side and his pants rolled down Minato could feel the intensity of Kushina's stare, of the others' stares, increasing at Lee's complete and utter lack of shame and clothing.

Kushina whistled, "Hot damn, Lee, you make one pretty man."

And she… he… did. Minato hadn't noticed, had been willing himself not to notice, but without any clothing it was very difficult not to stare at Lee's newly toned abs as well as… other parts of her… his… body.

"Really, that's good to hear. I wasn't sure how I'd turn out looking like as a man, I feel mostly the same after all." Lee said, good naturedly, not even bothering to cover any of the essential parts of her… his… biology.

Mikoto placed her face into her hands, her cheeks ridiculously red, but Kushina had no such shame as she leered, "Well, I can say, Lee, that you certainly don't look the same. You look fine, believe it."

Lee flushed, grinning, looking pleased with her own handiwork and at the sight of that, of her… him… and Kushina staring like a hungry jungle cat Minato's last straw broke.

He launched himself at Kushina, punching her in the face, and shouted, "Don't eye-fuck my wife, Uzumaki!"

Kushina punched him back, dunking him in the water, shouting, "Well, why don't you go and make sure your 'wife' doesn't get in eye-fuckable situations, flakey bastard!"

(Distantly he heard Tsunade sigh, stand, and leave to go put clothes on. He also heard Lee quietly ask Mikoto, "Should we do something about this?"

And Mikoto answering, "Well, Lee, you may as well get in the water.")

Naturally the bathhouse ended up on fire.

* * *

"So… Minato as a woman…" Inoichi started, swirling his drink and giving a sideways glance to Shikaku and Chozu, "Is it just me, or is he unnaturally hot?"

"Don't start troublesome conversations." Shikaku stated, eyes darting around the room, although the kage was probably at home with her daughter and husband at this point.

"Ten out of ten," was all Chozu had to say about it.

"We're not talking about this!" he looked at both of them, glaring, willing them to let it go and move onto something else, anything else.

"I mean, we're all married men, but I think we can all agree that Minako-chan is probably the most beautiful woman in the village." Inoichi continued, completely and utterly without shame, "And I'm including the Uchiha in this lineup."

Shikaku chose to remain silent, nurse his drink, willing either of them to get bored and just go home already.

"And you know what's stranger, I don't think she's really trying, really knows how to try. She still wears men's clothing, and I don't think I've ever seen her in makeup, yet somehow that naturally tousled look to her hair and healthy flush on her cheeks…" Inoichi trailed off, smiling to himself, probably envisioning their hokage and old friend in very compromising situations.

All Shikaku could think was, that without even seeing Lee all day, she'd somehow managed to ruin his night.

* * *

Minato's attempt to regain his masculinity: four.

If you can't beat them, you can't join them, then you had no choice but to starve them out.

And if Lee was going to strip tease for Uzumaki of all people then Minato would make sure that Lee would watch him strip tease for her, and get nothing for it.

Or, at least, that was the plan.

It had been three months, life had gone on, and Minato had discovered that as a women the other kages and many of his in-village political opponents were much more easily distracted than they had been when he was a man.

They found themselves agreeing to things, rather dumbly, if he just smiled at them in the right manner or casually brushed his fingers against theirs.

Worse, he stopped questioning his appearance, his voice, everything about himself. He grew used to his new body shape as well as Lee's. He even mused, one morning, if he shouldn't just give in and refer to himself as 'she' and Lee as 'he'.

Naruto might grow up thinking that he was her mother while Lee was her father.

But, since that time, he and Lee hadn't had sex or anything close to it.

And if he couldn't persuade Lee, if he couldn't have her beaten up by Tsunade, then he could tempt her and offer nothing.

So there he was, lounging on their couch in candlelight, roses spread throughout the room, dressed in a kimono that was far too loose, letting it droop down over a bare shoulder and waiting for Lee to show up after a long day, not in the mood for either patience or mind games.

And there she was, walking in, flushed and exhausted from training but still managing to smile at the sight of him. Then stopping at the sight of him, confused, eyes dilated by the lack of light, staring at Minato's legs and then his bare shoulder.

"Hello, Lee, I've been waiting for you."

Lee glanced at the room, at the flowers, then back at him, "I can see that."

"Can you, Lee?"

He didn't move, instead waited as Lee hesitantly walked over towards him and the couch, eyeing Minato as if he was some unpredictable wild animal.

There were some who thought that Lee didn't have a sex drive, that she didn't feel lust, but this wasn't quite true. Lee just disregarded it, catalogued it as unimportant and irrelevant, but she could and did feel attraction.

It was there now, dancing in her green eyes, in the hesitance of her fingers as she reached out for Minato.

He caught her fingers before they reached his shoulder, "What is it you think you're doing, Lee?"

Lee looked at him, hesitated again, eyes wide with misunderstanding, floundering around without a guide, "I… There are flowers."

"Well, yes, there are flowers. But you see Lee, I've never had sex as a woman and I'm not inclined to try it." Minato said, lowering his eyelids and letting his lashes cover his view of her, offering her a small enigmatic smile.

"It's not so bad." Lee said, slowly, again uncertainly, her hand still caught by Minato's.

"Perhaps, but I'll never know, and neither will you for that matter." Minato said, and then, leaning forward with killing intent, said clearly, "Because unless you turn me back into a man and yourself into a woman there isn't going to be any sex for anyone."

He released her hand, watched as it fell back to her side, and she simply stared at him her face unreadable. Finally, without emotion, Lee stated, "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me, aren't you?"

Then, before Minato could respond yes, or else ask who Mrs. Robinson wsa, Lee lowered her face to his and brushed her lips against his, slowly, softly, a ghost of a touch. Then she backed up, her lips twisted in a crooked, lazy smile.

Minato stared, face flushing, eyes widening, never having realized before that Lee truly was attractive even inside of a man's body.

Lee reached out with a hand, softly, lightly, and traced a path from Minato's cheek down to his collarbone. He didn't stop her, didn't even move to stop her, all he could do was just stare into those familiar green eyes.

"You know, Minato, I just borrowed Kakashi's collection of Icha Icha novels." Lee mused, leaning forward to whisper into his ears, "And you know, they were very informative."

"Were they?" He asked, but she didn't respond, just slowly leaned over him on the couch, moving her legs so that she was straddling him, that smile never leaving her face…

Later, naked inside of his bed, entangled with Lee, he'd judge his plan to be a horrific failure that had backfired immensely.

* * *

Minato's attempt to regain his masculinity: five and final.

The moon was high overhead, clouds drifting across it, and Minato watched as Lee slowly blinked out of her doze to stare at Minato. And perhaps for the first time in months Minato was able to look past her new exterior to the Lee he'd always known. Funny, she'd never had trouble seeing him.

"Lee, why are you so afraid of being a woman?" He asked.

"I'm not afraid of being a woman." Lee said, softly, sighing as she looked at Minato.

"Then what are you afraid of?"

"Losing Konoha, losing you, losing everything… You want children, Minato, but you also want the village. And I want children, but I also want the village. We couldn't stay as we were, safely, and have everything we wanted. Either we'd lose Konoha or…"

"Or we wouldn't have children." Minato finished, closing his eyes and sighing against her, a hand brushed through his hair, grown longer since Minato's gender had changed.

"I'm too powerful to be that unbalanced, Minato. You know that… It's safer, if it's you." Lee whispered, leaning close to him, so that all he could see was her eyes, her eyes which hadn't changed in the slightest.

And he knew, looking at her, that this was his moment. If he raged, if he despaired, if he cursed, then she would listen. She'd bring them back to the way it used to be and all of this would be just a few months of strange adventures in his life.

But…

She wasn't wrong either.

And she… he… was still Lee, still beautiful and still the only thing he'd ever truly wanted.

"I'm sorry, Lee, that I couldn't listen." Stroking a hand through his wild red hair, still too long and curly, Minato said, "Perhaps… Perhaps I need to learn to not be afraid of being a woman, instead of you."

Lee smiled back at him, all of his soul inside it, and Minato couldn't help but smile back in spite of all of the consequences.

* * *

Twelve years later, when the still male Namikaze Minato of the other Konohagakure, used the shiki fujin in order to summon Death to defeat Orochimaru he came face to face with a slightly altered Shinigami.

He also, later, came face to face with a female version of himself from another dimension.

Minako was not pleased, especially when she pieced together who must have been responsible in the first place for her feminine state. Minato was simply confused, but more than willing to defend himself.

As Kushina would later tell her own whiskered Naruto, yellow flash versus yellow flash was a battle for the ages and the greatest piece of evidence that women really were more terrifying than men.

* * *

 **Author's Note: So, yes, there's a look into future events in this fic that will probably never happen. Enjoy it. Based on a prompt given to me by Hii-tan, who asked for a fic where Lee causes gender swaps in a few if not all characters. Which inspired... this.**

 **Thanks for reading, reviews are appreciated.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Harry Potter.**


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